'Trigger warnings' on college classes get mixed reactions in SouthCoast

By AUDITI GUHA

Sunday

Jun 1, 2014 at 12:01 AMJun 1, 2014 at 5:58 AM

Watch out, this article contains trigger warnings.

Watch out, this article contains trigger warnings.

Common on feminist blogs or in dealing with trauma victims, trigger warnings or "TWs" are popping up on college campuses to protect students who may be disturbed by certain course material. The alerts can be compared to warnings on films, video games or tobacco products, but do they belong in higher education?

Last month, the student government at the University of California in Santa Barbara passed a resolution urging professors to alert students of content that could "trigger" symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Think poisoning, drowning, and stabbing for Shakespeare's "Hamlet," racism and rape for J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace," pedophilia for Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," and a whole host of warnings for the Bible or the Greek epics.

"It feels a little kid glovey," said Jessica Heikes, 36, who graduated last month with an MFA from UMass Dartmouth. "I feel if you're going for higher education, you're likely to expose yourself to different things."

"I've never heard of such a thing at BSU," said Diana J. Fox from the anthropology department at Bridgewater State University. "In my view, trigger warnings represent a form of censorship and curtailment of academic freedom and ignore the skills that good professors have cultivated."

The issue has sparked a debate at campuses across the country.

Oberlin College in Ohio has advised its faculty to be aware of triggers such as racism, classism, sexism, but to not use them when it "does not contribute directly to the course learning goals." It cited Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" as a novel that may "trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide and more."

A Rutgers University sophomore suggested students should be alerted to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" with "TW: suicide, domestic abuse and graphic violence," according to The New York Times and other national newspapers.

None of the local colleges has implemented or discussed campuswide trigger warnings for potentially disturbing material. But some individual faculty have used them in their classes.

"So far, this has not been an issue at the college," said Martin McGovern, spokesman for Stonehill College in Easton.

Some local faculty, however, use warnings. Stonehill College professor of media and film Ron Leone said he warns his students about explicit materials.

"I include a written statement on my syllabus indicating that some of the material screened in class contains sexual and/or violent content, and, if watching material like that makes it impossible for students to approach the films critically, they should reconsider taking the class," he said in an email.

"I've been teaching for 17 years and I've always warned students about violence in films, such as in a film I often show that takes place during the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century," said Stephanie O'Hara, professor of Women's and Gender Studies at UMass Dartmouth.

Donald Dow, 21, a UMass Dartmouth student who works at the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality (CWGS), said he thinks trigger warnings are important.

"We always have trigger warnings before any of our programs or events that could be potentially triggering to students and we have had staff on hand to speak with them if they requested it," he said in an email. "One of the largest problems across American college campuses right now is an epidemic of sexual assaults, the recent dialogue around sexual assault is a good first preventive step but it needs to be presented in a way that is responsible and respectful to victims."

Dow said he was recently at a national young feminist leadership conference that was "seriously lacking trigger warnings."

"Student attendees took to Twitter demanding more trigger warnings in workshops," he said.

Some SouthCoast students and faculty told The Standard-Times they don't like the idea of a mandate but prefer a middle ground.

"If something is explicit, it should be OK in the proper setting. What some people think is art could be graphic to others," said Maurice Cyr, 46, in the paralegal program at Bristol Community College. "But I think it's not a bad idea to respect other people's opinions."

Jean Pierre Lachat, 27, said the most explicit material he has come across at BCC is about Hitler and Stalin while studying western civilization.

"I was not affected by it but maybe, if I was Jewish, I might have," he said. "If it's just a picture or text I don't think it's a big deal. If you're really going in-depth, a quick warning could be useful to some students."

Years ago, students on campus were upset they weren't warned about the graphic nature of "The Silent Scream," an educational film on abortion, said Juli Parker, director of the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality at UMD.

Parker said trigger warnings have been around for decades and are used at the center because "We do so much work around sexual violence and have speakers talking about rape."

Dow said triggers warned students before screening "Project Unbreakable," a film about sexual assault awareness and "The Vagina Monologues," a feminist play.

While she has seen triggers used for film, Parker said she hasn't heard of them used in classic literature but is not surprised they are now being used. Nationwide on college campuses, one out of four women are victims of rape or attempted rape and one out of seven men are victims of sexual abuse, she said. So it is no surprise that colleges are trying to take precautions. Important for victims of rape or violence, Parker said she would hate to think of triggers putting students off from reading certain books.

Not everyone agrees with Parker's point of view.

A majority of the people responding to this story were critical of triggers, especially in art and literature.

An English professor at BCC, Howard Tinberg said he likes to respect professors' abilities in teaching controversial subjects. Tinberg has been teaching a Holocaust course for 12 years and said he understands the importance of respecting students' comfort levels in that class. However, disturbing material is also "a part of the education process to unsettle students." Trigger warnings could be the "antithesis of what a college experience is about," he said.

This semester, BSU professor Fox said she showed and discussed film clips about the Rwanda genocide as part of a wider discussion about genocides in Africa.

"Of course it's disturbing and it should be," she said. "Students come to classes with all kinds of issues that are real and painful but there is no way we can be effective and honest educators if we don't discuss the horrors and abuses, discriminations and prejudices that plague human societies."

Jessica Fernandes Gomes, an instructor at the Charlton business school who also works at CVPA, said the whole point of tenure was to free professors to teach material they think appropriate without being punished for it.

Staff members at UMass Dartmouth Star Store campus said art schools have nude models that could make people uncomfortable but it is essential for students learning to sketch figures.

"I think professors have a hard enough time doing their job and then you keep adding more red tape. Next thing you know, people won't want to teach," said Heikes, recent UMD graduate.

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